I certainly agree that it's a reboot, but it is one that does acknowledge what went before it, by the inclusion of Old Spock in the storyline. But this new universe is its own animal and certainly feels like a reboot.

I would be inclined to say Abrams is just insulting the intelligence of the average fan who doesn't want to disavow the "prime" continuity, by implying a tenious and minor connection to said prime universe that it somehow doesn't constitute a reboot.

Yes, I see no reason for it to conform to a particular model of re imagining. The basic idea is... they'll do whatever they want to do insofar as making more profitable films for the studio. If previous iterations of Star Trek have material they wish to utilize, they'll do so. If they wish to go ahead and contradict established 'canon', they'll do so. Thankfully, nothing's sacred.

It is a semi-boot. Instead of doing their version of the TOS characters in a straightfoward fashion they played it safe (not the fault of the writers but of the studio; larger budget, higher risk aversion) and went to extreme lengths to tie their stuff into all that came before. ENT, DS9, TUC, Unification, NEM; ST09 is a massive fanwank festival which is again hardly surprising with a fan being in the writing team.

I think Trek needs a clearer cut with the past and above all no involvement of any fan to prevent this incestuous stuff. It is no coincidence that the last two movies, NEM and ST09, were written by fans and tried in vain to copy TWOK. Neither Meyer or Berman were Trek fans when they got into touch with the franchise.

They really should have done Galaxy Quest 2 with the studio execs wanting to reboot the show with teenagers, promoting it like "the old show is dated and lame, this is not your father's Galaxy Quest", making the original cast extemely pissed off (especially Tim Allen when he doesn't get invited for a cameo, but Alan Rickman is), and when another intergalactic emergency happens, both crews get sucked into the adventure. With time travel, so they actually reboot things for real.